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How to uninstall software

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bitsnpcs:
Thank You misko_2083

gold_finger:
Another excellent post misko_2083  --  great job!

Scott:
Hi Misko. Great info. Thanks.

Jerry:
Another champion post :) Remember to click 'Thanks' for misko.

anon222:
Uninstalling software with synaptic package manager:
1. Open synaptic package manager
With menu (Install/Remove Software) or with this terminal command:

--- Code: ---sudo synaptic
--- End code ---
2. Search for software in the search box.
3. Right click each software you want to uninstall and mark them for removal. If you want to remove the software along with configuration files mark them for complete removal.
4. After marking for removal, click on Apply to start uninstalling all the marked applications.

Uninstalling applications with Terminal:
Before you start to uninstall applications, you must find out the exact package name of the application you are about to remove.
Check this tutorial to see how to use apt-cache and aptitude to find out the exact applications's package name:
https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/index.php?topic=734.0

There are two ways to do this:
1. To remove package enter this command: (Replace package_name with the package name of the application you want to remove)

--- Code: ---sudo apt-get remove package_name
--- End code ---
2. To remove package along with all configuration files, enter:

--- Code: ---sudo apt-get purge package_name
--- End code ---

autoremove is used to remove packages that were automatically installed to satisfy dependencies for other packages and are now no longer needed.

--- Code: ---sudo apt-get autoremove
--- End code ---

How to remove PPA's:
Before you remove or disable PPA's you need to know a few things.
Make sure you only disable or remove PPA's you added, not any others that came with your distribution.
Disabling a PPA means you won't receive any updates from that PPA anymore, but it does not remove any installed / upgraded packages.
The advantage of disabling a PPA instead of removing it is that you can easily re-enable it.
If you remove them you will not receive any critical system updates and you will not be able to install any applications from that PPA.
Be careful about removing PPA's. If you remove a PPA and the application is not removed, you won't get updates for that application automatically (or at least not when you do sudo apt-get upgrade). You will not receive updates and security fixes, bug fixes, etc. You can do it, but is on your own risk.

There are two ways to do this:
1. Using the graphical user interface:
Run this command to start Software & Updates GUI

--- Code: ---software-properties-gtk --open-tab=1
--- End code ---
Now you can disable or remove PPA's.
To disable a PPA, uncheck the box next to the PPA you want to disable.
Remember to disable both lines: the main and the source code line.
In the same way you can also re-enable a PPA.
To remove a PPA, select the ones you want to remove and click on Remove.
2. Removing PPA from the command line:
To remove PPA's use the --remove flag, similar to how the PPA was added:

--- Code: ---sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:owner/ppa
--- End code ---
Optionally, you can delete the .list files from /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory. Not recommended for beginers!

--- Code: ---ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d
--- End code ---
Then when you have noted the name of that PPA (e.g. targetppa.list), you can enter:

--- Code: ---sudo rm -i /etc/apt/sources.list.d/targetppa.list
--- End code ---

To find out the PPA to which a package belongs to, enter:

--- Code: ---apt-cache policy package_name
--- End code ---
For example:

--- Code: ---apt-cache policy umplayer
--- End code ---
Output
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
umplayer:
  Installed: 0.98-1~trusty~NoobsLab.com
  Candidate: 0.98-1~trusty~NoobsLab.com
  Version table:
     0.98-1~trusty~NoobsLab.com 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/noobslab/apps/ubuntu/ trusty/main i386 Packages
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From this we can see that the ppa is ppa:noobslab/apps
If it is missing you have probably installed it using .deb method or from source or you removed/disabled the PPA.

How to purge a PPA
If it's not installed, first you must install ppa-purge.

--- Code: ---sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
--- End code ---
Purging a PPA means not only to disable the PPA, but also to downgrade any packages you've upgraded from that PPA, to the version available in the official distribution's repositories.
If there are no such packages in the distribution's repositories they will be removed.
In order to purge a PPA type the folowing command, just change the owner/ppa to whatewer you need.

--- Code: ---sudo ppa-purge ppa:owner/ppa
--- End code ---
You can downgrade/remove all the packages from a repository with this command:

--- Code: ---sudo ppa-purge -i ppa:owner/ppa
--- End code ---

How to uninstall software you installed from source code:
cd into the directory you compiled the application an then enter:

--- Code: ---make uninstall
--- End code ---
or

--- Code: ---sudo make uninstall
--- End code ---
If the app was installed as root.
But this will work only if the developer of the package has taken care of making a good uninstall rule.

In the future to avoid that kind of problems try to use checkinstall instead of make install when you compile an aplication whenever possible.
It will create and install a deb file that you can then uninstall using your favorite package manager.
To install checkinstall, enter:

--- Code: ---sudo apt-get install checkinstall
--- End code ---
Instead of

--- Code: ---sudo make install
--- End code ---
you will use

--- Code: ---sudo checkinstall
--- End code ---
The installed package can then also easily be removed via Synaptic or via Terminal.

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